Page 1 of Cipher

PROLOGUE

CIPHER

Ahead of my club president’s wedding, I had mapped every inch of the Rutledge property. I’d also done a deep dive into each guest before Stryker put a ring on his old lady’s finger. None of it demanded much conscious effort, because assessing a crowd had become as natural as breathing sometime during my first deployment.

Rebecca Raines was the only part of the evening I couldn’t reduce to useful information, because the reaction she caused in me was completely fucking unwelcome.

I’d known exactly who she was before the bride introduced us. Bex was nineteen, Jacqueline’s best friend, and Sheriff Raines’s only daughter, giving me three separate reasons to keep my hands away from her. And her father understood precisely how dangerous I could be.

Those facts should have settled the matter for a man who trusted logic. Instead, one look at her in that pale-blue maid-of-honor dress had sent enough blood into my cock to make the rest of the ceremony an exercise in controlled suffering.

The soft fabric ended above white cowgirl boots and followed a slender yet undeniably feminine body, curved in every place my hands wanted to close around. Loose honey-blond hair brushed her shoulders, catching gold beneath the strings of lights, while her hazel-green eyes seemed to shift between warm amusement and wicked curiosity depending on whether she thought she had caught me watching. Her full pink mouth made restraint even less pleasant, especially when my mind insisted on picturing those lips swollen beneath mine while I found out what sounds she made when a man stopped treating her like the sheriff’s sweet little girl.

I had spent years extracting useful intelligence from visual details, but nothing about knowing the exact shape of Bex’s ass in that dress was helping anybody survive the night.

I kept my place beside the makeshift bar, a bourbon sitting untouched between my fingers while I tracked her through the reception without moving my head enough to make it obvious. Every man who looked at her stayed in my awareness longer than he should have, and each one who made her smile produced an irrational pressure beneath my ribs that had no tactical value whatsoever. I’d convinced myself no one noticed, although Stryker glanced my way twice, looking like he was waiting for me to finish making a bad decision.

And Bex was just as aware of me, which explained why she had spent the past twenty minutes finding increasingly weak reasons to return to the bar. Her first visit had been for sparkling water, the second for a napkin she could have taken from any table, and the third because she claimed the bartender had hidden the lime wedges from her.

Each time, she stood close enough for the citrus-and-vanilla scent of her skin to reach me, gave me a warm smile, and waited as though she expected me to flirt. But I answered only what she asked and watched her walk away while my cock stayed hard enough to punish me for the decision.

A burst of laughter pulled several guests’ attention across the lawn, but mine was fixed on Bex when she stopped beside me again. She tilted her face toward mine with determination bright in her eyes and the impish curve of her lips telling me she knew exactly how closely I’d been tracking her. “You know, watching every man who asks me to dance is a lot more work than dancing with me yourself.”

“I’m not watching every man.” The lie was defensible because I was also watching the entrances, perimeter, and half the club, but the slight lift of her brows said she wasn’t interested in technicalities. My gaze dropped to the pulse at the base of her throat before moving back to her eyes, and the soft pink beginning to spread over her skin made me want to put my mouth there until the color deepened beneath my scruff. “Some of them aren’t worth monitoring.”

Her smile widened as she held out one slender hand. “Then dance with me and save yourself the trouble.”

I stared at her fingers for a second too long, imagining them tangled in my hair while I held her against a wall and dragged my mouth down her body. My restraint had already been reduced to mere avoidance, which irritated me nearly as much as the erection pressing against my zipper.

“No.” I kept my voice low because she didn’t deserve to be embarrassed in front of anyone.

Bex lowered her hand, but her expression remained curious rather than hurt. “You don’t dance?”

“Not the issue.” My gaze moved to her mouth again, and she caught the lapse before I forced my attention back where it belonged. “You and I can’t do this.”

“Dance?” she asked, though the flicker in her eyes said she knew I meant considerably more.

“Anything that starts with one.” I tightened my grip around the glass when she stepped closer, bringing her soft scent and the warmth of her body into the narrow space I’d been trying to preserve. “Wouldn’t stay a dance.”

Her breath caught, and for one dangerous second the heat moving through her expression nearly ended the argument. “Who said I wanted it to?”

Every filthy image I’d spent the reception suppressing came back harder. I wanted to wrap one hand around her nape, keep her eyes locked to mine, and make sure the only man she ever looked at with that invitation in her eyes was me.

“Bex.” The warning came out rougher than I intended, but the sound of her name still carried too much possession for a man turning her away.

“Cipher,” she returned sweetly, matching my tone badly enough that her attempt almost made my mouth move. “That still isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.” I forced the words through a jaw tight enough to ache, hating the small shadow they put into her expression even while I knew allowing myself one taste would end with me claiming everything. “Find somebody else to dance with.”

The brightness in Bex’s face dimmed by a fraction before she covered it, lifting her chin while her hand dropped from the bar. Her voice acquired an edge that made my cock pulse despite the anger beneath it when she replied, “Fine.”

She walked toward the dance floor without glancing back. I remained beside the bar, my expression blank to anyone who didn’t know me, but my hand closed around the untouched glass hard enough to whiten my knuckles. Letting her leave had been the correct decision, yet every instinct I possessed tracked her through the crowd as though distance from me had turned her into the only vulnerability on the ranch.

One of Raines’s younger deputies intercepted Bex before she reached the tables. He held out his hand, and she accepted his invitation with a smile before letting him guide her onto the dance floor. The guy was close to her age, clean-cut, and attractive, which made the immediate urge to snap his wrist particularly inconvenient.

The instinct to break him increased as I tracked the gradual slide of his palm until his fingers rested below any point I was willing to call respectable. The pressure in my chest whipped into cold rage. Before it even registered in my mind, I’d set down my glass and crossed the lawn, ignoring Stryker’s low groan from somewhere near the dance floor because this no longer had anything to do with anyone except Bex and me.

She might not belong to me—my mouth twisted at the sour taste of the thought—but the deputy didn’t get to put his hand on her ass while she laughed up at him like he’d earned something I had spent the night refusing.